Examine the scope of Fundamental Rights in the light of the latest judgement of the Supreme Court on Right to Privacy.

In Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), a nine-judge Constitution Bench unanimously declared privacy a fundamental right intrinsic to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and pervading the whole of Part III. The reference arose from the challenge to the Aadhaar scheme, and the verdict overruled M.P. Sharma (1954) and Kharak Singh (1962), which had denied such a right.

How the Judgment Widened Fundamental Rights

• Privacy was recognised as a natural, inalienable right that the Constitution guarantees rather than confers, anchored in human dignity.
• Its content spans bodily integrity, informational self-determination and decisional autonomy over intimate choices of food, faith, family and identity.
• The Court read Part III as an interconnected scheme — reaffirming the Maneka Gandhi approach — so privacy claims can be tested under Articles 14, 19 and 21 together.
• It cast a positive obligation on the State to build a data-protection regime, which eventually yielded the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.

Not an Absolute Right

• Restrictions must satisfy a threefold test: a valid law, a legitimate state aim, and proportionality between the objective and the means adopted.

Downstream Expansion

• Navtej Singh Johar (2018) decriminalised consensual same-sex relations; Joseph Shine (2018) struck down adultery as a crime.
• Common Cause (2018) recognised passive euthanasia and living wills; Puttaswamy-II (2018) upheld Aadhaar for state benefits but struck down Section 57, barring private entities from demanding biometric authentication.
• Courts now routinely apply its framework to test surveillance measures, facial recognition deployment and allegations such as those in the Pegasus matter.

Puttaswamy converted Part III into a living charter of dignity and autonomy. Its proportionality yardstick now disciplines surveillance, facial recognition and data-collection programmes, making the judgment the fulcrum of India's rights jurisprudence in the digital age.